You, With the Galaxies in Your Eyes
by chalantness
Summary: If her first kiss takes her breath away, her second one is a knock to her gut.


**Title:** You, With the Galaxies in Your Eyes **  
Rating:** PG-13  
 **Word Count:** ~2,400  
 **Characters:** Poe/Rey, a splash of Jess Testor  
 **Summary:** If her first kiss takes her breath away, her second one is a knock to her gut.

 **A/N:** This had a point to it, but it got lost in the fluff.

 **You, With the Galaxies in Your Eyes**

It starts with a kiss.

Well, before that, it starts with a date—if you can even call it that, but Jess insists that that's what it is, so Rey does the same.

He pulls her from the room – the hospital room where Finn sleeps, where she and Poe have crossed paths dozens and dozens of times now, where they sit on the couch that C-3PO ordered someone bring them and talk in hushed voices against the beep of the monitors and the low hum of the medical equipment – and curves his fingers around hers as he walks her towards the hangar. They sit on top of toolboxes, backs against the metal wall, tucked into the shadows of his X-wing as he hands her a napkin of sweet bread from the mess hall with a lopsided smile on his face. She gets sugar and butter all over her fingertips and has to lick them clean, and Poe's sentence trails off as he watches, lips parted ever so slightly.

He leans in, brings a hand up to rest against her face, smoothing a calloused fingertip across the apple of her cheek, and her eyelashes flutter the way her stomach does.

"Is this alright?" he asks, voice low, hesitant. It sounds like something he isn't used to asking, and the back of her mind strays to the rumors she's heard floating around the base about Poe and his likeness, his habits, and also to Finn, his smiling face, the way he'd held her hand.

But it _does_ —it _does_ feel right, if the tingling in the pit of her stomach is anything to go off of—so she breathes out a, "Yes," and then is met with one of the brightest smiles she's ever seen Poe give, all white teeth and curling lips and this chuckle of relief that's warm against her skin. It makes her chuckle, too, and he tilts his head and slants his lips against hers.

If her first kiss takes her breath away, her second one is a knock to her gut.

She makes this little noise that she can't help and he makes one of his own, deep and rumbling from his chest, and Rey can practically feel how much the air shifts. He cups her face with both hands, pulls her close and kisses her harder, wild and uninhibited, as if he were waiting for her very mark of approval before letting it all out. She doesn't really know what to do with her hands sort of just dangling between their chests, but then his move, one hooking behind the bend of her knee, hauling her onto his lap, and the other hooking over the curve of her hip, keeping her in place, and she grasps the material of his flight suit and grips onto it tightly. She feels dizzy, as dizzy as she'd felt flying the _Falcon_ the very first time.

She feels _exhilarated_.

Her cheeks flush, and her lungs burn, and it's as if Poe can tell, because he pulls away ever so slightly, presses one last kiss to her lips and then drops his forehead to her collarbone as they catch their breaths. His curls tickle her skin, and, hesitantly, she brings a hand up and tangles her fingers into his hair, smiling when he leans into her palm.

"Was I okay?" she whispers, because she's curious. She knows she has nothing to be embarrassed about, and she trusts Poe to be honest with her.

"Okay?" he echoes on a laugh. His hand moves from her hip, sliding up her side slowly, and then back down, and he tips his head back, tilting up to meet her eyes. She holds his gaze, watches as he licks his lips, and knows there's a lot more to what he's saying when he answers, "Yeah, you were okay."

She smiles.

... ...

Before their date, there were their talks.

Even then, those didn't come until after she'd left, and though she'd hardly knew him at the time, he was there to see her off with Leia and the others. He wasn't yet the source of comfort that he is now, the source of inspiration and encouragement he's become to her, but he was vaguely familiar. He'd been the one to follow Finn down to medical, and every time she'd dropped by, there he was, voice low as he held his own conversation next to Finn's unconscious body. She could never make out whatever he was trying to say, but she wasn't trying to, either, and the little smile and nod he gave her as he headed out of the room and she headed in showed that he shared the same respect for her conversations.

So, yeah, they weren't quite friends yet, but he was a familiar face, a lingering presence never too far out of sight. Leia placed the file of the map in her hand, pulled her in for a hug and wished her luck, and Poe met her eyes over the woman's shoulder, giving her the first lopsided grin of many.

"Fly safe out there," he'd said, nudging her fist with his shoulder, and she'd just nodded. "Be back in time to see Finn wake up."

This made her smile. "I will," she promised.

And then she followed Chewy onto the _Falcon_ , and then she was gone.

Welcoming her home had been a different atmosphere, with cheers and more hugs, even though she still knew very little about these people. That didn't seem to matter much to them, though. There were tears as they watched Leia throw herself into the arms over her brother, hugging him with all her might, and a funny feeling poked at Rey.

"Welcome home, kid," a voice greeted, and she'd been grinning before she even turned around. Poe grinned back. "What took you so long?"

... ...

Their talks happened in the early hours of the morning, or the late hours of the night, as the sun rose and set, before work was to be done or after the day had long passed and there was a dull ache in her bones from trying to squeeze the most out of what little hours the day had brought them. They started in Finn's hospital room, sitting on hard, metal chairs as they kept their voices low, practically lulling each other to sleep, until C-3PO stumbled upon them or BB-8 came whirling by, chirping in triumph upon finally finding them. A couch was brought in after C-3PO's insistence, and an hour or two of soft, meaningless conversation turned into long mornings and longer nights, nestled on the cushions as they watched over Finn's sleeping body and stared at the monitors, trying to will a disturbance in their rhythmic, steady beeping. She sat with her knees and her arms around her legs, tucked into one side of the couch as Poe sprawled over the other half, feet kicked up, arm tossed over the back, head tipped to one side. He was perfectly comfortable like this and it made her grin.

Then there were more talks – over breakfast, or dinner (if neither of them skipped it for the night), in the hanger, on the field. There never seemed to be enough time in their days to get everything done, but there were lulls between chaos, and they stole these minutes to themselves whenever possible.

"You two are close," Luke had observed one day, after he'd come to the hangar to pull her away for training and Poe had gone off to talk with his squad.

"He's a good friend," she'd replied, careful to make her tone nonchalant. She'd heard rumors, so many different ones, about the Jedi and their many codes. She doesn't know what's true and what's not, and Luke has yet to bring anything into clarity, so maybe it's safe to assume that none of that existed in the first place—or just doesn't anymore.

"I'm glad," he told her, and she looked over to find him giving her the ghosts of a smile.

... ...

Through Poe came Jess.

Rey had grown close to Leia, and she very much enjoyed the company—but it's different with Jess. It's more casual, more comfortable.

Jess has an entirely different energy to her that is so vibrant, Rey wonders how she and Poe can exist within the same space without constantly colliding. But that's not for lack of trying. They bicker, and it's all very affectionate and nothing to be concerned about, but they pick fights because they enjoy fighting with each other, and the hanger isn't quite the same when their loud banter doesn't echo off of the metal walls. Rey has had very little experience with friendships, but she's entirely sure that theirs is hardly a conventional one.

Jess latched onto Rey with more ease than Poe had, much to his dismay.

"It's because I'm clearly the better option," Jess had retorted across their table at the mess hall one day, on the rare occasion that they'd made their way over to have lunch. Rey had chuckled into a mouthful of bread when Poe tossed a crumpled ball of foil into her face, and Jess had responded with a toss of her fork that nicked his jaw.

So, yeah. Becoming friends with Jess had been swift and seamless, and there was a different sort of comfort that came with her company. What little they had in common didn't pose any sort of issue, and Jess had quickly come accustomed to linking their arms together whenever they walked across the hangar, or tugging Rey's hair loose from its buns to braid it herself. They talked about mechanics and piloting, or they shared whatever gossip had been floating around the Base that day (which was always far more intriguing than it should be).

And eventually, they started talking about Poe.

"He's an irritatingly handsome guy, isn't he?" Jess had asked errantly, glancing at Rey through the mirror. She'd been working Rey's hair into an elegant pile of braids atop her head as Rey stitched up the rip on the shoulder of the girl's flight suit.

"I suppose," had been Rey's reply, though the flush of her cheeks was quick to give her away. Jess smirked and then Rey glanced up. "I don't have much experience when it comes to men that aren't trying to use me for cheap labor," she admitted, and watched as Jess's expression softened in the reflection.

"He has a reputation," she'd said (and yes, Rey knew this, because they'd talked about it before). "But he's a good man. He cares very much about you."

Rey grinned. "I suppose."

... ...

It takes two days after their kiss for the gossip to start circulating.

No one _sees_ anything, and Jess has a feeling (she _always_ has a feeling, and she's always right) that she makes them confirm, but that's evidently enough for rumors to start circling. Or maybe they've just been the talk for a while now, because it's not exactly a secret that the two of them are close, and that they spend a lot of their time together. Jess tells them that people have been betting on the day when that all stops being so innocent, and the way Poe brushes it off so easily is too suspicious, even for him and his forever nonchalant attitude.

"You knew," she accuses, except it's not really an accusation – not when it comes out in this pathetic, breathless sound as he nips at the column of her neck.

"Everybody talks, darling," he tells her, which is not at all an answer, but she's distracted by the way his fingers tangle into her hair. They're on his bed, the door locked, her legs wrapped around his waist, and he lets out a low groan as she shifts her hips above him, fingernails digging down his chest.

He tells her that they can take it slow – he _wants_ them to take things slow, wants to do things at her pace – and she has to have Jess explain what that means, because it's not like… He's her first _everything_ , so doing what feels natural is all she can really go with. It's what she's been doing from the start, and it's touching, really, how adamant he is about taking this slow, about not rushing things—in theory, that's very noble of him, she knows. But the reality is that they live every other day ready to face another war, not sure what tomorrow will bring them next, and he more than anybody should know that that's as good a reason as any to do what _feels_ right, not what _seems_ right, and this? This feels right— _they_ feel right.

He tucks his hand under the fabric of her clothes, his fingertips cold and calloused as they pass over her skin, skimming her out of her robes. She tips her head back, relishes in the way his curls tickle her stomach as he kisses downward, in the way her entire body flushes under every brush of his stubble against the inside of her thighs, every pass of his tongue.

Her high comes quickly and crashes all around her, back arching, hands curling around his hair too tightly as her lips part, and mumbles, "That's it, darling— _fuck_ , you're so beautiful."

He climbs back up, brushes his thumb over her temple as he hovers over her, pressing into her space, and she feels weightless.

"Okay?" he asks, and she doesn't miss the curve of his lips, the hair falling into his twinkling eyes as he graces her with another lopsided grin. She laughs a breathless laugh.

"More than okay," she says, and he chuckles, nuzzles his face into her cheek. For a moment, she just closes her eyes, trying to soak in the feeling of him against her, his lips brushing across her cheek, thumb massaging at her temple – and then he moves his hips, sinks into her slowly, and she digs her fingernails into his muscles and almost forgets to breathe.

... ...

After, _after_ , she lays atop his chest and he presses a kiss to the top of her hair, drawing the covers above their shoulders. She can feel herself drifting to sleep already, the absent curves of his fingertips over her spine lulling her to sleep, and she exhales slowly, a sleepy smile tugging at her lips.

"Is this alright?" he asks. She knows the question doesn't come from a place of doubt, that there's nothing but _sureness_ in his voice, and it makes her heart flutter.

"Yes," she breathes, and then tucks her face into the bend of his neck. "Now go to sleep."


End file.
